


They Weren't Sun-Kissed, Chris/Karl, R

by blcwriter



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: LiveJournal, M/M, fic import
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 18:11:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter





	They Weren't Sun-Kissed, Chris/Karl, R

  
More comment-fic archived from Team Jones, for posterity.  Hello, posterity!!!  Someone prompted about Karl being so tan, and Chris being so NOT.  Thus, this fic was born.

\--

“Ugh,” Chris pissed and moaned, tossing the last of the self-tanning lotion bottle into the trash. “I hate this shit with a passion.” His pout was so adorable, Karl wanted to go and kiss the thing right off his face.

“You should just get the airbrushing shit done,” he said, looking up over his _Economist_. It was still early, and while Chris had already had his run, his shower, his coffee, all that shit he liked to cross off his list because he was compulsive like that, Karl was still getting started. He took another sip of his coffee before setting it back on the nightstand, then went back to the review of the newest Achebe collection.

“I _can’t,_ ” Chris protested. “I already told you. I’m allergic to everything but the Neutrogena— all the rest give me hives. Not everyone just turns bronze like you at the first hint of sun. It’s not fair. I mean, you’re _German,_ for fuck’s sake. You have almost as many freckles as me.”

Karl smirked and went back to the book review. “Antipodean, my friend. We just have more sun.”

“I’m from L.A., there’s plenty of sun.” When he looked up, Chris’ pout was so far extended that Karl could—well, naughty things involving fruit came to mind, never mind that the man was buck naked as he waited for the slightly foul-smelling lotion to dry. Dumb photo-shoots and the photographers asking for him to appear “less than his usual wan.”

Chris was still complaining as he worked in the lotion. “Don’t pull that shit with me. You struck a deal with the devil, admit it. Never take a bad photo, don’t sunburn, can star opposite a wet paper bag and keep getting movies, and you only get more rakishisly handsome as you age.”

At that, Karl had to snort. “Rakish, hunh? Try more grey-haired and graven. I’m going to need to relastayne these ditches in my forehead or something.”

Chris looked actively horrified and scrambled up on the bed, straddling Karl with his hands on Karl’s shoulders. The self-tanner lotion really was whiffy, but Chris’ blue eyes were wide and alarmed and his forehead was crinkled and worried. “No! Bones’ general eyebrow-ery is part of his charm! Yours too! You can’t microdermabrade yours into some stupid idea of Hollywood smoothness— you’re not allowed, it’s just who you are and that’s the only person you have to be.”

The last was said with such fervency, as Chris planted kisses all over Karl’s forehead and at the corners of his—let’s face it, starting to get just a little-bit-slightly-okay-maybe-a-bit-puffy-first-thing-in-the-am-just-maybe-- eyes, and wasn’t this all just so dumb and stupid because he’d gone and told the kid to stop whining and put on the self-tanning lotion to make the photographer happy.

Fuck that. There was a point of too much accommodation, Karl could now admit this was true.

Plus, the lotion was going to get stains on the duvet if Chris knelt there much longer.

“Come on, you,” he said, pushing Chris off and away as he headed them both to the shower. “You reek and this shit always makes you look a little bit jaundiced no matter what. That stupid photographer can just learn to deal, pale skin and freckles and all. And tell him if he airbrushes this,” he said, rubbing his thumb over that little divot of an acne scar just to the side of Chris’ mouth, the one he liked to lick because it was an imperfection of Chris’ of which he was especially squeamish and so the attention made his toes curl, “then I’ll sic my devil and my wet paper bag co-star on him and eyebrow the hell out of him to boot.”

Chris chuckled as he yanked back the curtain and Karl turned on the water—it was with no small satisfaction that he picked up the soap and started to lather that false-toned, foul-smelling goop off.

And if he paid a little more attention to his favorite freckles with his hands and his mouth once the soap was rinsed off— if Chris paid attention to certain creases at forehead and eyes— they weren’t sun-kissed, but kissed they were, all the same.  



End file.
